Include monthly travel costs in mortgage application?

Peony2016

I spoke to a mortgage advisor at Yorkshire Building Society this morning. He informed me that we don't need to include deductions for our monthly travel costs (daily train fares commuting to London for work) in the commitments section of a mortgage application because their model already allows for that in the calculations. Therefore what we can borrow from them is much higher than expected. Is this the same for all banks/BSs?

Their rates aren't very competitive so we won't be going with them unless they drop their rates by the time we come to apply. We'll find ourselves a broker to get us the best deal but we'll probably go with Halifax or HSBC as they've got the best rates at the moment (that I can see from a quick look at the MSE mortgage comparison tool). Do Halifax and HSBC take the same approach as YBS re monthly commuting costs?

[Deleted User]

Not the same for all, but thats the benefit of this market and why we have so many lenders. They all assess cases differently. Some will ignore season ticket loans, some wont. We even used to have a lender who ignroed childcare costs from their affordability!! (i guarantee every broker on this forum misses that bit of criteria)

Its good for affordability sometimes but also keeps people like me in a job. How is joe bloggs supposed to know which lender ignores certain things or is lenient on other things?

HSBC ask for travel costs for application but Halifax dont. But HSBC generally lend higher than a lot of lenders so just because they ask for it doesnt mean they wont be better. The ones that dont ask for it will build assumptions based on the postcodes keyed to the application (employment address and home address = assumed travel costs in to london)

Getting a broker is a good shout, there are certainly better lenders than Yorkshire for rates and borrowing amounts in general

Retired_Mortgage_Adviser

What?! I am ashamed to admit I didn't know that. What's the catch though?

Deleted_User wrote: »

We even used to have a lender who ignroed childcare costs from their affordability!! (i guarantee every broker on this forum misses that bit of criteria)

[Deleted User]

Retired_Mortgage_Adviser wrote: »

What?! I am ashamed to admit I didn't know that. What's the catch though?

Natwest. It was amazing. They stopped last year at some point. The differences in borrowing amounts was insane when presented with someone with £500+ childcare costs.

They kept on claiming that the costs were included in their modelling but even when childcare costs of over £1000 were clear on bank statements they just ignored them. I assume they just got too many clients with high outgoings and had to shut up shop

kingstreet

ACG will soon be here to remind us it was August 20th or thereabouts as he took great delight in reminding me when I couldn't remember!

C'mon T, when was it?

[Deleted User]

kingstreet wrote: »

ACG will soon be here to remind us it was August 20th or thereabouts as he took great delight in reminding me when I couldn't remember!

C'mon T, when was it?

remarkable memory. I just checked my emails. Got the email on 14th August for the change on 20th August. Well done :-)

It was a dark dark day for the industry though. Thank god Natwest let us do product transfers cause i aint moving a single one of those clients for a good few years!

payless

I see the next CMC letter...
“ I was persuaded to borrow more than other lenders would lend.”

Peony2016

Deleted_User wrote: »

Not the same for all, but thats the benefit of this market and why we have so many lenders. They all assess cases differently. Some will ignore season ticket loans, some wont. We even used to have a lender who ignroed childcare costs from their affordability!! (i guarantee every broker on this forum misses that bit of criteria)

Its good for affordability sometimes but also keeps people like me in a job. How is joe bloggs supposed to know which lender ignores certain things or is lenient on other things?

HSBC ask for travel costs for application but Halifax dont. But HSBC generally lend higher than a lot of lenders so just because they ask for it doesnt mean they wont be better. The ones that dont ask for it will build assumptions based on the postcodes keyed to the application (employment address and home address = assumed travel costs in to london)

Getting a broker is a good shout, there are certainly better lenders than Yorkshire for rates and borrowing amounts in general

Thank you, that's so helpful. Would we be able to tell which one will offer the most just by doing a decision in principle for each, or could we only be certain once we've submitted our mortgage application? I guess what I'm asking is how reliable a decision in principle is from HSBC and Halifax provided all details we enter are accurate. So we'd include the travel costs in our DIP figures for HSBC but not for Halifax.

[Deleted User]

If you've got a good broker, a Dip from a high street lender should be 100% accurate and not change on application.

I very very rarely get anything different to the initial AIP. The only time it happened recently was with Post Office and to be honest I'll probably never use them again because of it, still angry about it almost a month later. That was a disagreement on a childcare cost calculation (I took an annual average as instructed by the broker support team, the underwriter decided to take the highest month and x12 for the year). Messed up my affordability and collapsed the case.

Its very rare though. Hsbc don't even look at bank statements. That post office one that messed me around for weeks was offered with hsbc in 3 days.

Also, a dip for each is overkill. Affordability calculators are generally as accurate as a dip. The dip just confirms you can pass the credit check. Just watch out for things like o2 phone bill, they come up as a loan on credit report whereas other networks don't. Silly things like that cB catch you out if you are borrowing right at thr top of budget

Peony2016

Thanks very much. Neither of us have phone contracts or credit card debts so our credit files are very clear. That should hopefully make the process a bit easier for us.

Funnily enough we were looking at Post Office a couple of months ago, so we’ll keep your experience in mind.

TSB also have a decent rate at the moment. Do you know whether they require travel to be declared on application? Thanks for all your help

[Deleted User]

LD2016 wrote: »

Thanks very much. Neither of us have phone contracts or credit card debts so our credit files are very clear. That should hopefully make the process a bit easier for us.

Funnily enough we were looking at Post Office a couple of months ago, so we’ll keep your experience in mind.

TSB also have a decent rate at the moment. Do you know whether they require travel to be declared on application? Thanks for all your help

To be honest dont worry about it. One lender who ignores travel may lend £50k less than one that takes it in to account. Its not worth worrying about. Unless you plan to spend 50 hours going through a mortgage interview with each lender then just get a broker to do all the work and give you the figure you can borrow.